


Complicated Questions

by glymr, iesika



Series: Complicated Questions, Simple Answers [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Clueless Bruce Wayne, Deliberate Pronoun Fail, Gen, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:59:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7531957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glymr/pseuds/glymr, https://archiveofourown.org/users/iesika/pseuds/iesika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't believe it took him this long to figure it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complicated Questions

**Author's Note:**

> This story came about as a direct result of reading [this essay](http://iambickilometer.dreamwidth.org/159858.html) on what it's like to be transgender in fandom. There is a lot more trans-awareness nowadays, but when this was first written (six years ago) it was only just entering the public consciousness.

Bruce doesn't know what to say.

He can't believe it took him this long to figure it out. He's been working with the...child...for three days. _Three days_. And it wasn't until the kid strained his...no, he corrects himself quickly, _her_ leg that he *realized*.

Tim - and surely that's not her real name - finishes her stretches and goes to change. She's always been modest in ways that Dick was _not_ , but he'd ascribed that to Dick being from a show business background, where people often had to change into their costumes quickly around large groups of people. Tim, of course, was raised in an ordinary upper-class home. Some body shyness was perfectly natural in a 13-year-old boy of that age.

He very deliberately doesn't think about Jason.

Now he's not sure what to say, but he needs to say *something*. He clears his throat as Tim starts up the stairs.

"Tim," he says.

Tim pauses, _freezes_ , really, her back to him. Then she turns and looks at him warily. "Yes?"

"When you came to me," he begins, awkwardly. "When you came to make your argument, did you think you would be taken more seriously if you were...if you weren't...did you think you'd have a better chance of becoming Robin if we didn't know-"

She shakes her head quickly. "I never expected to become Robin. I was hoping that Dick would agree to come back to you again, that *he* would be Robin. I..." Her shoulders become tenser. "I just feel more comfortable in boys' clothes," she says, her voice low but steady. "My parents named me 'Tiffany'," she makes a face, "But when I was quite young someone, a neighbor's child, I think, called me 'Timmany'. The nickname stuck and, when I was a little older, I asked my parents to call me 'Tim'." She shrugs. "That's all."

Bruce frowns a little. "You deliberately let people believe you're male," he says.

The corners of her mouth tighten. "I'm sorry for deceiving you," she says. "Am I...are you going to fire me?"

He waits a long moment, feeling her tension from across the room. "You wouldn't be more comfortable as, say, Batgirl?"

A quick frown passes across her face. "I...if that's what you want, sir."

"What do *you* want?" he asks.

She looks at him soberly. "I want to be Robin," she says. "I want you to...not treat me any differently than you did before. I... _please_ ," she says, her quiet, controlled voice suddenly wavering. She clenches her hands into fists and turns away.

"Your parents," he says, becoming awkward again. "Do they...They do not object to you..."

She looks down at the floor. "My mother used to say, 'Oh, just humor her, Jack. What harm does it do? Who cares if she's a tomboy?' But lately..." She bites her lip. "Lately, they've both been after me to 'be more feminine' and 'act my age'." She looks up at him again, clearly forcing herself to meet his eyes. "My mom told me the other day that I was growing up, now, and I couldn't be a tomboy forever, especially now that I'm - I'm developing _breasts_." There's a sudden flash of anguish in her eyes on the last word, intense, yet so brief that he _almost_ misses it. "I've started wearing dresses and skirts at home when they're around so that they...I." She hesitates, then bursts out, "I _need_ to be Robin. I."

He thinks of Barbara, paralyzed for life. He thinks of Jason, then _doesn't_ think of Jason.

"Batman needs a Robin," he says, his own voice hardly more than a whisper, but she hears him, and a sharp, painful hope comes into her eyes. "Your gender makes no difference to me, Tim," he says, willing it to be true. "The important thing is that you do what I say, when I say. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," she gasps, and her face is flushed with relief and excitement. She turns to go, but he stops her with another word.

"Tim," he says. She pauses, but does not freeze this time. He doesn't know what he wants to say, though, so he says after a long moment, "I won't go any easier on you just because you're a girl."

Her back stiffens. "I hope you'll go harder, *Sir*."

"No. I'm going to treat you exactly the same," he says, and that makes her smile.

"Good."


End file.
